I Forget Where We Were
by AndSheWasBeautiful
Summary: Death is not an attractive thing, but god dammit Aerith, if anyone could make it graceful... The Great Ninja Yuffie will not allow Cloud Strife to see her cry. So, she will mourn in her own time thank-you-very-much; with the unexpected aid of the equally great Vincent Valentine.
1. one

_and that's how summer passed - your, great divide and range of green green grass. oh, maybe it was peace at last, who knew._

* * *

On a scale of one to gigantic gaping asshole, Cloud Strife, most literally took the cookie.

Or biscuit. Whatever. I've never understood the difference - one is laced with chocolately goodness, me sees this, however does this mean biscuits are devoid of such chocolately excellence? It does not, O my brothers.

Alas, I have taken a leap down Sidetrack lane, and have lost my train of thought.

Cookies, biscuits, taking them... YES. Gigantic gaping asshole equals one Cloud Strife.

Why, I hear you scream?

Well, if he had to remind me one more time that she was goneanddeadandnevercomingbackanditwasallhisfaultbroodbroodbrood - I was going to bundle him up in gift wrap and leave him on Sephiroth's doorstep. He was trapped in one moment, his mako eyes glowing as they watched the long sword pierce her flesh, as the light left her eyes and the baby pinkness of her dress was blackened with gore.

Death is not an attractive thing, but god _dammit_ Aerith, if anyone could make it graceful -

I couldn't sit in the inn any longer, around Cloud fucking Strife, depleting everyone's already depleted morale, rubbing salt into the bloody wounds of Tifa, beautiful Tifa -

So yeah, gigantic gaping asshole to the power of 375738364 is approximately the region that Cloud finds himself sitting in.

And as a result, I was now sitting atop the great sloping hill overlooking the village, the chill in the air enough to make me sit down on my haunches and wrap my arms around my knees in a huddled attempt to retain some heat. My teeth had just begun to chatter, as I was reminding myself that I would fucking turn into a sexy ninja popsicle before I would return to the all encompassing angst of Cloud Strife, when I heard the soft rustle in the brush behind me. I was on my feet in an instant, Conformer armed and ready with nearly mastered materia, my body close to the ground in a fighting stance.

I mean, I don't call myself the Great Ninja Yuffie just to piss off Cid and Barrett you know (although, I must admit, it does seem that way sometimes).

Instead of a monster stepping from the brush, teeth snapping and claws unsheathed, it was instead a long, scarlet, moth bitten cloak that greeted me, and a pair of matching scarlet eyes, burning from the darkness of a shock of onyx hair.

I drop Conformer, and quickly shrink back down to my bundled up position, a shiver running down my spine as I do.

"Vince, one of these days you're gonna end up dead at the hands of the Great Ninja Yuffie if you don't stop creeping around like some sort of shadow," I muse, doing my best to disguise the shiver in my breath, my knuckles white as I grip onto my legs.

Vincent doesn't say anything (SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKING SURPRISE), but instead takes two long strides so he is not very far from me, gazing out too at the village. A long gust of wind strikes his cloak up and billowing around him, his hair dancing around his jaw and shoulders, and I clench my teeth together in an attempt to conceal an exceedingly audible gasp.

Wordlessly, Vincent unclasps his cloak with his good hand, and drapes it about my shoulders. I jerk as the soft material settles on my skin, the smell of gunpowder and sandalwood floating down with it, engulfing me in his scent.

Not that I... eh... have sat for hours and puzzled over what makes up his own personal musk... eh... yes. I mean NO! No, of course not, nyuk nyuk nyuk.

It is quiet, and the air is still again, and me being me, desperately searches for something to fill it.

"Sure you won't freeze up, Vinnie? I don't wanna have to haul your ass all the way down the hill. I mean if I catch hypothermia, my lithe ninja form should be easy enough for you to carry to the inn - I mean despite your evident muscle wastage, you know, from rotting in a coffin for 30 years without so much as a copy of _Midgar Milfs_ to pass the -"

"Yuffie."

I _hate_ it when he does that. Demonstrates that innate ability of his to shut me up with one quiet, solemn word. I glance up at him, to see, surprisingly, his own eyes staring back at me. My mouth is slightly open, hanging on the word I was about to say, but not quite squeezing it out. He sinks slowly to my side, extending his golden claw to the grass that lay beneath us, and folding his own legs up so he was sitting like an almost lotus flower.

His eyes never leave mine.

He is very close, and I am grateful for the cocoon of his cloak, to shield the bottom half of my face from his piercing gaze. When Vincent looks at you with those eyes, you feel like he is slicing you open, dissecting everything you've ever said and rifling through all your lies and secrets. Finally, I swallow the lump in my throat and croak back an almighty, ninja-like response.

"... _Nani_?"

GAWD, I wasn't even capable of saying 'what' in English! Wutainese tends to creep out of my mouth when I'm too distracted/frightened/upset to register anything else - which of course, rarely happens, given my excellence at suppressing my emotions, a key trait every ninja should have...!

His lips curl slightly, and I don't know whether he is poised on a smile or a grimace at my pathetic behaviour, before he speaks again.

"You do not... have to speak. Or you can, if you wish. I will listen, if that is what you would have me do. Or... I will leave?"

His voice raises ever so slightly in question as he speaks that word, as I make no move to tell him what I want. He pulls away ever so slightly, and before I realise what I'm doing, my hand has shot out from the depths of his cape to clasp his forearm, my fingers arriving where flesh met metal and scar tissue spiralled up his arm like the vines of a rose.

I don't have to ask him to stay - he can read my eyes better than any of them, down there in that inn. Vincent and Yuffie, the outsiders of AVALANCHE.

I try to unlatch my fingers from their death grip around his arm, but I can't quite bring myself to, the warm, steady pulse at his elbow comforting in some strange morbid way.

Aerith didn't have a pulse anymore. Beautiful, sweet _Aerith_, so young, so _gentle_, she shouldn't have been the one to -

"I can't -" I begin, my words more choked than I had intended them to be. I gulp in freezing air, blinking my eyes fiercely against the wind, and my grip tightens on Vincent (I absently wonder what sort of genetic modifications Hojo equipped Vince with that allowed me to stop the blood flow in his arm for so long without developing a fucking clot).

I try again, sucking in before broken little words fall from my lips.

"I can't understand why it had to happen to her."

Vincent does not speak, or intrude upon my words, and as he so often does, draws a sense of quiet in around us.

"Why her? She was the best out of all of us, she was so - she never hurt anything, or anybody - and he just... he just _destroyed_ her, _KILLED_ her-!"

I don't realise I am crying, angry tears spilling out of my eyes, as I desperately try to make sense of it all. I mash my cheeks with my knuckles, only adding to the angry redness that is creeping across my face.

I've always been the ugliest crier - like think Midgar Zolom, on his school picture day, with braces and an acute acne problem, and we're still only scratching the surface.

I spend the next few minutes snorting up snot, and making feeble, STUPID , little whimpers into Vincent's cloak, my eyes swelling out into a puffy mash of tears hanging on eyelashes as I rub them with the heavy material. I manage to control my sniffs, my breath catching past every sob as I try to cling onto any tiny wee sense of dignity I might have left (albeit at the very bottom of my being).

"_Leviathan_... sorry about your cloak Vince, I'll pay for the dry-cleaning, 'swear-"

He doesn't cut me off with words (words - those things you don't need to speak to me Vincent, wonderful _Vincent_-), but with a movement, the shift of his night-time coloured hair on his shoulders, and the unholy (but so _beautiful_, I don't _care_ Vincent) glow of his bloody eyes drawing my gaze in close.

"In my experience..." he begins, his words trailing off, not as though to indicate he is stopping his speech, rather choosing his words with as much pickiness as Cloud when he's trying to find a glass to drink water out of (seriously, the man will re-wash a tumbler as many as TWELVE times before Tifa snatches it from him and fills it - note to self: Cloud's problems may run deeper than interesting leader with brooding/self-loathing issues - explore further.)

I curl tighter into the warmth of Vincent's cloak, watching him like a kitten, the same mixture of painful curiosity and tangible giddiness causing my heart to pound faster. Gods, Vincent speaks more than three words at a time, and suddenly I lose the capacity to understand him, his words fluttering in the rumbling timbre of his voice, just beyond my reach.

"In my experience," he repeats, pausing only slightly this time, "it is often, the most righteous among us that are torn from our sides the soonest. However," he reaches into one of the many deep pockets of that dashing black ensemble of his, a delicate reddish ribbon trailing out with the soft tug of his long, golden fingers. "Not a force on this planet, can... _destroy_ those righteous enough to be torn so."

I watch the ribbon flutter in the cold night air, and all at once it seems to sing that song that followed her, and the grass smells just a little sweeter, the earth is just a little softer and I am so _sorry_ it had to be you-

I can only gaze in wonder at Vincent, my hand moving from the dark protection of his cloak to tremble beneath the ribbon, which he lets slip from his pointed fingers and fall softly into my palm. I pull my hand back in as though the ribbon has burnt me, and bite my lip.

"Sephiroth simply pierced a hole through Aerith, that no amount of medicine or materia can heal," Vincent says the words as simply as he perceives the ending of her life to be, and I suppose, to him, someone who has experienced death, resurrection, being blown apart, being stitched back together (as the rumours go, anyway) the ending of life is easy. He was a Turk. He watched the light leave people's eyes ten times over a day, he has seen bodies wither and perish, he has watched another he loved with all his heart fall to pieces, while her body stayed intact.

I realise then. That is what he sees as 'true loss'.

"He can never take away the memories or feelings we have towards her; he can't take away what our Aerith _was_," I finish for him - a sentence I don't think he believed needed an ending, but he nods nonetheless, and I throw the cloak from my shoulder, hastily pulling the ribbon around my upper arm. I shuffle forwards on my knees, edging towards him, sniffing for the last time. "Can you tie this for me?"

He looks at the ribbon for a minute (as if he didn't know what the fuck the verb 'to tie' meant) before reaching forward and skilfully tying a tight little knot with as little use of his claw as possible. It was just tight enough that it would not flutter away, but not so tight that my pulse was racing through my arm.

"Hey you're good at that," I say, partially because I'm a sarcastic little monster, but also partially because I am impressed. He says nothing, back to classic Vinnie dot-dot-dot, but not before I realise my palm has come to rest on his thigh for balance, and I am so close to the alabaster smoothness of his high cheekbones that he can probably count the freckles on my nose.

For maybe the zillionth time since I have met him, my breath catches and one thought is honestly the only thing I can focus on.

Gods, he is beautiful.

"And you are surprisingly good at acting as shallow as a puddle."

He stands then, in one swift, smooth movement, and I struggle to regain my balance, caught off guard by his sudden movement. He turns, his coal black hair sweeping out behind him, and he is so fucking _majestic_ as he begins to walk away.

"Hey Vinnie, you forgot your cloak!"

He pauses only for a minute, the deepness of his voice emptying out into the air around him before falling back on my ears.

"Give it to me in the morning. Lithe or otherwise, I do not wish to 'haul' your ninja form anywhere."

I can hear the smile fall from his lips, the coy bastard.

And Aerith, all I smell is _gunpowder_ -

* * *

_I implore you if you enjoyed this to 1) Drop me a review, because let's all share the Yuffentine love and 2) Steer clear of my old Yuffentine stuff - 14 year old, angsty songfic Cait has nothing on her 19 year old counterpart. Thank you guys, kisses. _


	2. two

Oh holy good Gods above if you can hear me now Aerith -

When I say that my body had been ravaged by the most vicious monster in the forest, I don't mean Sephiroth popped up from behind a tree and suggested a quickie (such a vile thought didn't even cross my depraved mind you sick-sick-sicko); I mean, some creepy creature Shinra mutated beyond recognition, had decided to use my upper shoulder and back as a scratching post, the longest of the three pronged cut, zigzagging from my right shoulder to the swell of my left hip.

When it first happened, the adrenalin was pounding through my veins too hard, and it wasn't until I bent over to check the beast's corpse for materia that I staggered forward, the startling pain suddenly sizzling its way along my spine, and the sweet, sticky smell of my own blood filling my nostrils. I reached my arm up to try and make sense of what had happened, my fingers meeting with torn flesh, mottled and stinging.

My fingers were drenched in gore when I pulled them back in front of my eyes.

At this point, the rest of my comrades finish disarming themselves, and wiping sweat from their brows. As my pupils focus on the blood under my fingernails and running down my wrist, my legs wobble in shock, and before I can utter as much as an 'oh!' of surprise, I am falling.

Vincent is on one side, Cloud on the other, both inhuman in the quickness of their movements, strong hands gripping my upper arms as my head rolls backwards. My head feels light, fuzzy, like someone has stuffed if full of cotton wool, and my tongue seems heavier, swollen, and I can barely force words out of my mouth.

"Jeez... no attractive men your whole life... and then they're there all at once...!" My joke is limp and slurred, and I suddenly find myself even FUNNIER than I usually do (which is, I must say, pretty freakin' funny). Tifa is there then, pulling my head down, her forefinger beneath my chin as she squints into my own eyes with her mulled wine pupils.

"Yuffie, how many fingers am I holding up?" she lifts her hand, and suddenly I wonder why I never noticed Tifa had seven fingers and no thumb. I open my mouth to slur back an answer, but evidently, I'm not quick enough for them. Life is a journey, not a _race_ my friends!

"She is losing too much blood. We need to move quickly - the wounds are too deep for a Restore materia to fix alone," Vincent's rumble comes from beside my right ear, and I turn my head to get a good look at those chiselled features. Surprisingly blurred today.

The pain is only intensifying and a low moan is all the sound I can emit without totally losing it and screeching.

"You guys... back... it hurts," I manage to squeeze out, before the edge of my vision begins teetering on darkness. Tifa is in front of me, jogging along as, I have noticed, I am being lifted and carried swiftly towards the edge of town and our inn.

"Just stay with me Yuffs, okay? We'll get you back and Vincent will patch you up, alright? Hey, Yuffie, keep your eyes open!" she shouts at me then, leaning forward to lightly slap my cheeks. I puff out a breath of lightheaded pain, and lick my lips, tasting the brutal metallic flavour of my own blood.

"Tired... Teef," I mumble, head lolling forwards as the world darkens around me. I don't even pause to consider the implications of smoking-hot-Vincent -used-to-be-a-Turk-has-tonnes-of-life-experience-Valentine tearing my already shredded shirt from my upper body and getting a flash of, dare-I-say-it, SIDE BOOB (solid b-cup, I swear). Tifa is yelling at me to stay awake, but I'm just too tired, I just want to close my eyes, and have a good ... long ... sleep.

I can hear the door to the inn being kicked open by a heavy boot (Tifa, use your _hands_) and the innkeeper gasp in shock to which he gets swiftly told to forget he saw us (Cloud, do you kiss your mother with that _rude_ mouth?) and in a moment, I am face to face with the plush goose feather down pillow of my bunk.

Is it just me, or are hotel/inn pillows not just the most _comfiest_ things on the Planet?!

I feel cold air then, waking me up from my haziness, as the fabric of my shirt is torn from my back, easily, with a swift flick of a curved golden forefinger.

"I will need gauze and rubbing alcohol. And space," Vince's murmur is fervent and serious, and the room is silent under his powerful control, as I hear someone rummage in the bathroom for said accoutrements. My back is thudding with pain as more blood rushes to the spot, and I feel a soft, yet hard worn hand take my own and grasp it tightly... I love you, Tifa.

"Yuffie." It is Vincent, a strong sentinel, drawing all of my scattered attention up and into his presence in one fell swoop. "This will hurt. It will feel as though I am burning you - this is the alcohol. It will kill any bacteria that will cause infection, and help the blood to clot. You have already lost too much blood - no matter the pain, you must stay awake. Do you understand me?"

I snort into the cushion and give a meagre thumbs up with my free hand.

"Wow, Vince... longest damn speech I've heard from - AH!"

White hot pain, making every cell in my body feel as though it is exploding in on itself. It is searing, as though a poker is being pressed to my exposed flesh and held there, beyond the point of normal pain and into the realm of torturous mayhem.

"VINCENT _STOP_!" my strangled cry, and I notice then that two solid hands are holding my upper body down onto the bed, two more holding my feet in place so I cannot squirm or tear myself away from Vincent's medicinal treatment. Tifa's voice is also strangled, like she is also in pain, and I clench her hand so tight I can feel my fingernails sink into her creamy pale flesh. Vincent continues, quickly and cleanly dousing my wounds in alcohol, the sheer force of the pain enough to leave me breathless as I begin to fade in and out of consciousness.

"Yuffie? C'mon Yuffie, stay awake," Tifa pleads, and I feel her reach forward and slip a soft mound of fabric into my mouth. I bite down hard, grateful for the break from biting down on my lip, leaving it a bloody mess. I am screeching, every fibre of my being rejecting the pain coursing through me, and sweat beads along my hairline, before running down my face and becoming mottled in the rest of my hair and bedclothes. I cry out Vincent's name again, muffled by the fabric, and as I do, I wretch.

At first it is a dry heave, and my whole body convulses in pain.

"Yuffie," Vincent's voice is a low tremor, cutting through the disorientation the pain has brought on, the softness of his human hand startling as he settles it on the back of my neck. All other noises around me dissipate, all the shrieks of pain inside my head, and I can only focus on him. "Yuffie, you must relax. If you vomit, you will lose more fluid. If you do not lie still, I cannot stitch the wounds closed. They will become infected, and you will die of blood poisoning. Stay. Still."

My limbs go numb and lank after he says this, and I see sudden blackness, then brightness, then blackness again as he stitches the wounds up, the marred flesh already numb from the alcohol. After he has done this, he holds his hands above my back, and I feel the familiar glow of pleasant warmth as he murmurs, "Cure 3."

The stinging subsides, although a dull ache remains, pounding from my back up and into my shoulder blades, as the magic begins its work. He is the last to leave the room, the chill which emanates from his body, formed to Hojo's twisted sense of perfection, close by my side, and I feel a hand settle on the back of my head. If he says anything, his words are drowned by the blood pounding in my ears.

I do not pass out from blood loss, I fall asleep in mere exhaustion.

But oh, Aerith, he _saved_ me -


	3. three

So on a scale of one to ten, it can safely be assumed that the pain of my healing wounds was somewhere in the region of 725.4 (roughly, of course, nyuk nyuk nyuk). And I know I said one to ten, but let's get real here - life would be boring if everything revolved around the truth (lies are more interesting most of the time).

That being said, I shit you not, every time I moved it felt like my stitches were tearing open, my skin parting anew and I hissed and sighed and cursed just like Cid taught me.

And I see him out of the corner of my eye, Aerith, he watches me sleep sometimes -

The room is still, dark, and I lie on my side, thick potion smeared upon my crusting wounds, bandages wrapped tightly around my trunk. It has only been three days since I sustained the injury - Restore materia cannot solve serious bodily injuries, but it augments the healing process if you steer it in the right direction. Tifa thinks I might even get away with minimal scarring, and I should only have to stay put for another day at most. The room has to be at least a zillion degrees (these freaking inn's think they're housing the undead or something) and all I want is the window to open with the will of my ninja mind powers alone.

Fuck.

I try to shuffle closer to the window, stretching my arm as far as possible, before I feel sharp pain in my right shoulder where the uppermost point of my wound begins. I slump back, attempting to blow my sticky bangs out of my eyes to no avail. I roll onto my back, the gauze and potion protecting it from any pain, and sigh.

Why me?

I fling my arm across my eyes dramatically, when the window snaps open causing me to (almost) jump out of my own skin. I squeak in shock and my chest begins to rise and fall rapidly as I gaze up and into the eyes of none other than - Vincent Valentine, you guessed it (he's like a little night time prowler, bless him).

"Vince!" Again, a squeak, my breathing returning to normal (well as normal as it can be around you, O Vincent Valentine) and a coy smile sneaks its way onto my face. "Were you trying to catch me in the nude?!"

He hits me up with a characteristic dot-dot-dot, so I grin sheepishly at him, and pull myself up and into a seated position, wincing only slightly as I do so. His crimson eyes flicker to my back for a moment, glowing all the brighter in the darkness of my room, the stars the only form of light trickling into the tiny space.

"Your back... it is troubling you?"

I look at him, really look at him, and his words seem to stand out in front of my eyes, soft and... was that a hint of... concern muffled in those tones? Surely not...

"Not so much today," I reply, wincing again as I reach up to scratch the back of my head. His eyebrow quirks, and he sits down on the bed, slowly and deliberately. His hand stretches out, just as carefully, asking permission without words, something he has mastered. I shuffle toward him on the bed, before turning and presenting my back to him. I feel the point of a claw trace the wounds, and I shiver. His finger stops.

"I thought you were too hot?"

"Well yeah Vince, for nearly 100% of my teenage years," I joke, internally face-palming at my utter, indescribable LAMENESS. I laugh pathetically and shake my head. "Eh, no sorry. I am too hot, but your finger tickles." I hear the shift of his hair as he nods in understanding, as he continues examining.

"You are healing well. I believe the scars will be quite unnoticeable - you are lucky."

I don't know why I ask the next question, but it slips out before I can put a stop to it, and Leviathan save me, Aerith why do I do these things to myself - ?

"Are a lot of your scars... dark?"

His hand drops from my back then, and I continue to face the wall, not daring to turn and look at him. I don't know why I am frightened to look into his eyes - what will I see? Anger? Betrayal? I am not brave enough to face it, so I continue to stare, in the opposite direction, waiting for him to speak, or scold or leave without a noise.

It seems like a lifetime, but I hear his voice again, and it still rumbles with the gravely tones of Vincent but is softer, and lost.

"Dark. Brutal. Deep."

My breath is short and quick, like a little animal before it is mauled by a much larger predator. My hands rest on my knees, my knuckles white and bared to the moonlight. Hundreds of questions are swirling round my head, making me almost dizzy and I have to bite my lip to stop it all from pouring out. I don't want to drop the subject, so I try desperately to say something, anything intelligible.

"Do you have... many of them? Like many scars?"

I fear a dot-dot-dot, but again after a moment's pause, his words are there.

"Yes. I have many augmentations..." he pauses, and I bite my lip waiting for him to continue. "I suppose... you are going to ask where?"

I turn then, quick and smooth, ignore the twinge in my back, my eyes wide and mouth slightly agape.

"Not if... not if you don't want to tell me?"

dot...dot...dot...

"My heart has been genetically altered to require fewer pumps per minute, along with my lung capacity being greatly increased, to allow me to remain undetected by enemies sensitive to pulse and respiratory movements. Most of the scars are from skeletal enhancements, fusing mako with bone and muscle for increased strength. Eye enhancements; night vision. Olfactory enhancements; I can smell blood a mile away. Amongst other organ enhancements..."

I have LITERALLY, never in ALL my ninja, ass-kicking time with AVALANCHE, heard THE Vincent Valentine speak so much, never mind all in one go, but even AT ALL.

I gape at him, simple as that, trying to process the information he has just provided me with, counting off the things on my fingers that he claims Hojo tampered with, and think of the many more complex experiments and 'adjustments' Hojo made to Vincent's body, while he suffered and rotted and had his life swept up from beneath his very feet. The room suddenly seems smaller, quieter, and I absently notice Vincent seems to be waiting for me to comment. I wrinkle my nose in distaste, and gaze up into his eyes with my own storm grey ones, blowing out a little puff of air.

"Gods... that's rough, Vince."

It is not a grand statement, nor probably the wisest statement he has ever heard with regards to the brutal experiments Hojo conducted on him, however I refuse to pretend to be something that I'm not.

And Aerith, I will never understand his pain, and honestly, it would be stupid for me to even try.

He doesn't seem offended by my meagre comment, and I feel for a moment as though he understands that I appreciate the magnitude of the horrors that were forced upon him by some raving lunatic - but that I will never really understand what he went through, trapped in that basement (if there is a hell beyond the Lifestream, _Hojo_, that is the only place you will ever go), and thinking about it just makes me want to go and commit bloody murder.

He has seen enough murder, in his lifetime, I suppose.

"I guess, I never knew you before you were like this. So I can't imagine a Vincent without a... I don't know, without a urinary tract that lets you hold in pee for 30-something years," I muse, and his eyes flash (with anger, or amusement?) as his tongue darts out and licks his lips.

"No, you did not."

"... Do you wish that we had? I mean, I guess you wish all that... stuff..." I tread carefully around the boundaries of the Turks and Gast and Shinra and Lucrecia and Sephiroth and Project Chaos, watching him with all the care I would take picking up a single grain of rice with my best chopsticks. "... hadn't happened. But, forget about that, and forget about those 30 years and the fact you could be my dad. Would you still be a force to be reckoned with in this fight?"

I see the corners of his mouth twitch.

"You list plenty of factors to be omitted."

"Just try?" I pry, leaning forth again, the sweeping scent of gunpowder filling my nostrils and making the hairs on my arms stand up in delight.

"Well, if that were the case... I would still be a Turk, Yuffie."

His answer is blunt and predictable and I raise my eyebrows, surveying his carefully expressionless face, clenching the bedclothes with one fist as excitement gets the better of me.

"What a _boring_ answer, Vinnie. No grand betrayal of Shinra? No frantic quest to reach us in time to tell us Rufus has ordered our assassinations? No secret love affair with one princess of a far away foreign land?" I fantasize, my eyes glowing and my cheeks getting redder as I pop in that little surprise romance at the end of the tale, feeling my heart thud in my chest (please, Leviathan, let Vincent's ears have been unaffected by Hojo's enhancements!). Vincent's brows raise at my last comment also, and I hear a small sigh escape his lips.

"But then, Yuffie, I would be lying," he states plainly, and I feel the chill coming from the window all too strongly now as I see him retreat back into his little shell, all this talking having thoroughly worn him out. I pout. My words are quiet, soft, and my face is as close to his as it has ever been, as I greedily soak up his mere presence.

"Lies are more interesting... most of the time," I all but breathe, and I don't understand what this feeling is, this surge of emotion in my veins, as he moves his hand from his lap, upwards, and I swear he is going to press the palm against my cheek, but he stops, voice solemn and eyes filled with that awful emotion that we had managed to avoid for so long throughout this conversation.

Regret.

"But still lies. Nothing more."

There are so many words falling from that statement, as he rises from my bed and moves with that confident grace that only he possesses from my room and out into the hallway, closing the door tightly with a soft click.

I feel my legs sink back down so I am merely resting, my legs folded, not anxiously on my knees, pressing myself closer and closer into his little area of space. I allow myself to flop back down onto the bed, wincing only minimally as my back rests upon the mattress. It's healing fast, and as soon as it's fixed, I'm putting myself as far away from Vincent Valentine as I can. I'll split off with Barrett and Red, scout the opposite way, run like I always do.

My heart still flutters in my chest, and all at once I loathe him and adore him, and I swear to GAWD my little ninja ticker does a back-flip as my mind catches up with it.

And Aerith all I want to do it kiss him, kiss him, _kiss_ -


	4. four

So when I demand that Barrett and Red and Cid let me join their little scouting team, they point blank refuse, in Barrett's majestic tones stating, "Is you kiddin'? You bin sittin' in that bed fo' four days, and you esspect us to take yo' crazy ass scoutin'? You outta yah goddamn mind runt."

Endlessly pleasant and tactful, is Barrett.

After getting up at 5am the next day and pleading and begging and weeping at Tifa, she finally succumbs and says,

"Fine Yuffie! You can come with me west for supplies, if you absolutely cannot bear to go with Cloud, Vincent and Cait!"

White Rose of Wutai - 1 ; Vincent Valentine - 0

So, I give Tifa ample time to get dressed and prepped, before bounding to the door of the inn and yelling goodbyes to the rest of our startled companions resting at the breakfast table (you aren't there Vincent, avoiding me too.) Tifa probably did a little gesture to imply that I was crazy, but hey, the girl wasn't far off.

It felt ridiculously good to be freed of the confines of that room! My wounds had all but closed over, long pale scars trailing across my back, but no longer smarting and painful. The second my feet touched the grass of the outlands beyond the village, I did a cartwheel and landed on my ass, falling back so I was gazing up at the dawn sky, a mish mash of watercolours, blue and purple and red and orange, and Aerith, I was so happy to be _alive_ (as selfish as it may seem). Tifa is quiet behind me, strapping her sharp claw onto her knuckles, and shaking hair from her eyes. I sigh, long and slow, and grin to myself.

"It's so fucking good to not be cooped up in that room anymore," I say, pushing myself up from the ground so I am sitting and gazing around the plains surrounding us, nothing moving amongst the long grasses but the feather light morning wind.

"We figured you'd have gone crazy by now," Tifa states lightly, walking to my side, hands on hips in that Mother Duck way that she has. I roll my eyes and lean backwards, using my arms to propel myself up and into a standing position. I throw a grin at her.

"C'mon Teef, you know it takes more than a few little cuts to knock me out of the game," I say, twirling Conformer in my hands, fiddling with the materia I had stacked up inside it - I had been stacking and re-stacking it the whole time I was in bed, so I knew the positioning off by heart. We begin walking, slowly to preserve energy - we don't have to meet with the others until midday - that's when we're moving on; so Tifa sets the pace, slow and calm, probably not wanting me to 'over-exert' myself (she cares so much about me, who she knows so little about.) She is shaking her head then, a nervous laugh emitting from her lips.

"Are you kidding? I mean, we didn't tell you because we didn't want to worry you, but Vincent was worried for a while that they were so deep they might have damaged some of the nerve endings in your back," she says, glancing at me quickly with her mulled wine eyes. I frown at the use of his name, dragging up that fluttering heart of two nights ago, the last time I saw him. He is avoiding me, and I am avoiding him, and I am certain that neither of us are sure why.

"Oh did he? Well, forget that, I'm all better now!"

My voice is too chirpy, too bright, and Tifa's well trained ears snap up the change in tone almost instantly, and I wish in that moment, that it was Cloud I was with, trudging along in depressive silence, but not pestering me with mental images of Vincent Valentine.

Tifa's eyes tighten a teensy bit, but it is more than enough for me to sprint towards a dense area of shrubbery off to one side of the grassy plain, towards where I know there will be a monster waiting. This causes to Tifa's eyes to snap back open as she yelps after me.

"Yuffie! What in the name of the Planet are you doing?!"

"I swear I heard something - think of the potential materia score!"

Within moments of course, I do run into a monster, Tifa arriving close behind me to help defeat it quickly and cleanly. I rush to the body to inspect for goods, but the creature is bare.

"Damn," I hiss. It always really pisses me off when I take the trouble to clean up the planet of these nasty monsters, and they don't have anything in return for me! I turn to go, but Tifa snatches at my upper arm, and when Tifa wants to hold onto something, there is no use trying to escape. She is the strongest woman I have ever met (in more ways than one, _Cloud_, you stupid asshole.)

"Yuffie. What's the matter with you?" Her eyes are dark with severity, her lips a thin line, yet some ethereal softness still remains around her face, soft and lovely. I bite my lip for a moment, and decide, fuck it - Tifa sees right through everyone's lies, be they little or gigantic, but I will give it my all to fool her this one time.

"I'm just all antsy from being bed-bound for four days! I just want to slay some monsters, steal some materia, eat some ramen!" I sound off, as she tilts her head to one side, shaking it slowly. Her grip loosens slightly on my arm when we hear a rustle in the bushes, and we walk slowly to the edge of the shrubbery, back out and into the plains. I pray to Leviathan that the subject is dropped, but she keeps pace at my side, her voice gentle, but solid and accusatory at the same time.

"If that were the case, you would have gone with Cloud and the others like you always do. You know they take the darker routes to steal what they can. So who are you trying to avoid so much that you would come on the supply route with me?"

Damn you Tifa Lockhart, and your unnecessary insight into people's minds (seriously, she HAS to have psychic abilities of some description.) I open my mouth to tell her to stop being so nosy, but she has continued to speak.

"Did... you and Vincent have a fight? I saw him leaving your room a few nights ago, and he looked... upset I guess... well, as upset as that expressionless exterior of his will let him be," she amends, a slight laugh in her voice as she attempts to coax information out of me, like the sly little Mother Duck she is. I pout visibly, but in that moment, the Gods are smiling on me and they inject a sneaky little lie into my consciousness, so devious that I have to suppress a cheeky little giggle (Leviathan, I sound like a kid's cartoon villain...)

"It's not that... it's just," I begin, biting my lip and internally applauding myself for my deviousness. "Cloud has been really... weird. Since..."

I stop then, and I am suddenly sickened by myself, using_ it_ as an excuse to avoid my own confused feelings (and I am _so sorry_ Aerith, but in the grand scheme of things, I'm still a _child_ and I can't admit to it, not yet.)

Tifa stops walking then, standing still as though she has been petrified, her head bent and I instantly panic. Tifa is the strong one, Tifa looks after us, Tifa would _never_ let anything...

"Teefs."

The word is soft and I suddenly forget my stupid I've-got-a-raging-girlish-crush-on-Vincent problems, and come to the realisation that I am far more selfish that I first believed myself to be (which, Aerith, I always admitted to myself was a lot.) Tifa's head is still bent, her fists clenched at her sides, as she, I can only suppose, steels herself from crying. She will not let Cloud fucking Strife let her cry, and she will not let your death make her cry, because if Tifa falls apart, we all fall apart and she knows this.

And Aerith, she is so damn beautiful, now more than ever, for reasons I can't even name.

"Tifa." I say her name more seriously now, and I can see her fists trembling and without missing a beat, she slams her fist down in the ground, falling to her knees as she does. I leap to her side, immediately grasping her now bleeding, dislocated knuckles, and stroking her hand softly. "Tifa, why'd you do that, you silly cow?" I reach into my pack and retrieve a small potion, dabbing at her wounds, when a tear falls onto the earth between us. I dab slowly, my eyes never daring to meet hers, because I am a coward, _and I have made Tifa Lockhart cry_.

"I'm sorry," she gasps. I continue to clean in silence, not trusting my own voice or the growing lump in my throat either. "It's just... I can't cry for her when he's there. He's going to _break_, completely, and I'm not going to be able to fix him, so it's all I can do to _hold him together_."

A tear slips out then on my side, and I curse myself.

"I know it's hard Tifa," I say, putting the potion to one side, and holding her knuckles tightly between my fingers. "But you shouldn't bottle it up, that's enough to make you go fucking crazy!"

"Don't cuss," she admonishes, still Tifa through and through even though she is broken and weeping and desperately missing you, Aerith. I sniff and laugh then, shaking my head at her.

"Hold still. This is going to hurt," I say, being as quick as I can in snapping her knuckles back into place for her. She winces, but takes it like the fighter she is, gritting her teeth. She sighs, rubbing at her knuckles, no longer crying, but still managing to look like a goddess with her puffy red eyes. "I just... don't want him to hurt anymore, Yuffie. I want him to be okay again, and selfishly, I want to be the person who heals him. But I can't."

She sounds so young, and I remember she is only 20, and not a real mother, no matter how she acts. She sounds helpless and lost, like she is at the end of her tether, and I suddenly know exactly what she is talking about, and I wish we weren't so stupid as to fall for assholes like Cloud and -

Fall for.

I have known it for a while now, but it has only become apparent in my reckless, young eyes and I _hate_ myself and I hate _you _Aerith, because you knew didn't you, and you never told me?!

"I know exactly what you mean Tifa," I mumble, bitter and confused and exhausted, and she knows and I know and she rubs the side of my head and says that it will be okay and I hug her so tight I'm surprised she doesn't burst, but she clings back with just as much ferocity and when we pull away, the grass is greener, the air is sweeter and there is a daisy where Tifa's tear fell.

And Aerith, it is like you are there, crying with us, holding us close, telling us everything will be -

* * *

_I honestly didn't know this little piece was gonna spiral into what is has become, but I am so glad it has! Loving every minute of writing it, so if you could take the time to drop me a review that would be great! I thrive on them. No Vincent today, but he will make an appearance tomorrow... stick around to see the unfurling of this Yuffentine loveliness! _


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